Sure, my brothers and I had scrambled up and over cars, fences, bushes, rocks and steep hills for years before that time, and had spent uncounted afternoons attempting to climb around the internal perimeter of the garage walls without setting foot on the floor. A game that somehow, regularly ended up with my skull dented by the tines of a heavy garden rack.
Heck, we even climbed scaffolding, bleachers, and building roofs; and to date, I am reasonably certain that the three of us were the only kids in history to be punished for climbing the 45-foot bell towers of Saint Micheal’s Church in Livermore. Our protestations of innocent were weighted against the veracity of the old codger who lived across the street from our boyhood home, and a bit of belt tanning was used to tip the scales into presumptive balance.
But it was 13 years old before I really had an introduction to the sport of rock-climbing and anything that could be termed training.
That was the year I became a Boy Scout Patrol Leader, and I was lucky enough to be mentored by Roman Bystroff as our Patrol Dad. Roman had been an avid climber when he was young and though the demands of job and family had trimmed his time and dedication, they had done nothing to diminish his joy of the sport.
Roman began by simply bringing along an old climbing rope he had on all of our scout trips. Never pushing his agenda, Roman would set back and watch the ebb and flow of boys working on their skills, lashing poles, starting fires, or identifying edible plants. Roman knew that at some point the scout outdoor skills work would devolve into some sort of boredom, expressed either as wandering off or brawls, depending on the day and the idiosyncrasies of the specific boys involved.
Once that happened, the potential for a youth leader to reestablish control was virtually gone and the potential for serious injury grew exponentially. Now that’s not a condemnation of youth leaders, but the raw truth of the matter is, as my father would say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The same idea holds true with boys; they can be lead, when they are willing to follow, but once their willingness is worn through, it is impossible to lead them anywhere.
That was when Roman would get up from where ever he was sitting keeping an eye on our progress, our injuries, and the likelihood that someone was going to be going home in an ambulance. When he judged the time was right, he’d dust himself off, and wander over to his primitive campsite to retrieve a long climbing rope. Perhaps primitive is the wrong choice of words, but certainly that or maybe minimalist are the best choices for Roman’s sleeping and cooking areas; he was one of the original “Leave no Trace” practitioners.
In all the years and on all the trips I shared with Roman, I never saw him pitch a tent. In fact, I never saw him rope up a rain tarp. Nope, if rain was likely or not, Roman simply laid a ground sheet on the ground, placed a 2/3 rds pad down, and his sleeping bag. Once rolled into his bag, if it should start to rain, all he did was to pull the extra ground sheet width over his sleeping bag and tucked it in, over his entire bag, head to foot, and over his face as well, then simply go back to sleep.
In any case, back to the main line of the story. Long since, while sitting keeping an eye on us all, he had been looking over the various rocks, boulders, and dirt and rock walls within spitting distance of the campground. It was magical to watch; Maria without an Edelweiss to be seen, Mary Poppins without an umbrella, The Pied Piper without a flute.
It helped that Roman looked the part, painstakingly and intentionally I realized years later. He wore low-top hiking boots (European style), knee-length shorts, plaid shirts and always a felt Alpin hat. He carried a leather flask “Bota Bag” instead of a canteen, and ate a simple mixture now known as “trail mix” for anything other than dinner, and often as not for dinner as well.
Years later I came to truly understand the reason that felt Alpin hats were so popular among climbers and non-climbers alike. And while attired relatively similarly, you can readily tell the difference; Climbers do not have a belly that sticks out over belt or shorts, their forearms look rather like Popeye’s, and their felt hats never, ever have metal pins in them.
“Wannabe’s” are fond of felt hats festooned with hat pins to show off where they had been. But no serious climber ever did. Cause while wearing a Felt Alpin hat may be stylish, the last thing you want while climbing is to “felt” what happens when a fist sized piece of rock lands on a pin that pierces your hat. Felt hats provide a degree of cushion from a rock blow, but when a hat pin’s struck, it simply gets driven into your skull.
But they do keep your head warm during cool days, and they also provide a great place to hold “keepsake feathers” that you may have inadvertently torn out of some bird’s tail as it exploded past you while you are hanging with your feet precariously perched on tiny rock nubs, one fist stuffed in a crack, and the other hand inadvertently slaps down on a nesting Peregrine.
Once your pulse rate and vocabulary settle back down, and you’ve mentally checked your drawers for dampness and any weight shift, you will see the humor in having used an extra feather or two to “row” your way slowly back towards the cliff face; propelled by the violent wagging of any feather you accidentally claimed. And all it takes is one such event before you too will come to recognize that having your own stash of flight feathers will come in handy again someday. But that is for a more involved story than this.
As I was saying, Roman would wander back to his camp, dig a long section of climbing rope out of his backpack and stroll off to the closest obstacle to use setting up a bit of climbing practice. We boys would naturally follow in orbit around him and next thing we would know Roman was coaching us in how to use our hands and feet and eyes to pick out nubs, projections, cracks and even some well rooted shrubs to scale whatever precipice he had selected.
We learned about three-point stances and grip methods; strengthen exercises, and limbering stretches as well; we scrapped up shoes, skinned knees, and quivered from equal levels of excitement and fatigue.
We learned to use a rope from above to be “belayed” for safety while climbing. We learned how to sit, and anchor ourselves and how to wrap the rope around ourselves when we sat “on top” and were the “Belayer”. Through explanation, trial and error we learned how to control the tension on a climbing rope when a climber was moving up, down, or resting. We learned the language of communication so that there was no confusion between climber and protector.
And then, best of all, we learned how to rappel. There is nothing so much like freedom to a boy once he has learned how to trust himself and his rope that to walk backwards over a cliff and in controlled jumps leap out away from the cliff, control the fall rate and duration, and swing back into the cliff face with feet and knees acting as shock absorbing springs.
And this was no high-tech jamb nuts and ascenders type equipment rappelling either. We learned to pretzel the rope around ourselves, using the friction of rope wrapped between the legs, up around the right side to your chest, over the left shoulder, and around under the right arm. Left hand held the anchored part of the rope, right hand functioned as brake. Speed was limited by the heat friction a person could tolerate.
Most of the boys found this a fun interlude in any weekend trip. And activity to enjoy, but no more or no less than any other activity that Scouting regularly brought them into contact with. But for me, those simple early days of scrabbling up 10 to 20 foot faces and launching back down again filled me with a sense of control in life that nothing else ever has.
Over time I acquired a few carabiners, a couple pitons and made several crevasse nuts, slings, and quickdraws of my own. I never could afford cams, true climbing shoes, belay devices or a good climbing helmet.
With experience small boulders and rock piles morphed into cliffs and mountains while I continued to climb with and without Roman’s presence and guidance for most of a decade, completely enjoying the strength, power, challenge, and confidence to be found in the vertical dimension.
Copyright © 2021 Marty Vandermolen All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment